ইলা মজুমদার, প্রথম মহিলা মেকানিক্যাল ইঞ্জিনিয়ার (১৯৫১)

ইলা মজুমদার, প্রথম মহিলা মেকানিক্যাল ইঞ্জিনিয়ার (১৯৫১)
Synopsys of her interviews by Asim Deb, and Tanusree Chakraborty

• The first woman graduate engineer of India
• The first Indian women engineer to go abroad as an apprentice
• The first Indian women to work in the production floor of a heavy engineering factory.
• Founder of the first Women’s Polytechnic, Kolkata (the second in India)
• Founder of the first Women’s Polytechnic in East Pakistan (Dhaka)

Ila Majumdar Ghosh, the first woman graduate Engineer of Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur, and the first woman Mechanical Engineer of India, was a backbencher in the college, a bridge enthusiast and a television addict.

(Ila Majumdar, receving Distinguished Alumni Award, at Convocation, 2018)

Ila Majumdar was born on 24th July, 1930 at Madaripur village, Faridpur district, East Bengal. Born to a family of six sisters and two brothers. Her father Jatindra Kumar Majumdar was a first class first in MSc, a Deputy Magistrate (Bengal Civil Service) of undivided Bengal. Her mother was a housewife.

Young Ila was a bit different from others. She was riding a bicycle at the age of 12 and learned how to drive a jeep at 16, and those raised quite a lot of eyebrows amongst her friends and relatives. But when she wanted to become an engineer, and her affectionate father approved it, it was too much for the people to digest! “I always liked challenges and liked to do what people said girls can’t do” she sayd with pride.

In 1944, she was studying in class 9 at Khulna. Due to communal tensions the family had to migrate to Calcutta in 1945 and she lost 1 year of school calendar year. She could not get admission to any school and had to appear for matriculation, in private; two years ahead of the right age. Though she was always a good student in school but got mere second division pass marks. Brushing aside the initial disappointment, she took admission in Asutosh College, Calcutta for her I.Sc. “I got a first division then.”

In 1947, it was the firsttime government announced that all the disciplines of studies would be made open for both girls and boys. Because BE College didn’t have any infrastructure for girl students like hostel, she was denied admission. Young Ila approached the then education minister, Nikunja Behari Maity, who directed the college authority to “make immediate arrangements” for girl students. Thus, it opened the doors of Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur for women. Two girls got through the entrance examination however one girl, Ajana Guha dropped out in the second year. Later Ila had a special interview, and she was selected in BE College as well as in Calcutta Medical College. Ila-di continued with BE College and graduated in 1951, setting the trend in the history of Indian Engineering students’ community.

“Those were the days when only a few women opted for a career and the handful who stuck to medicine. Although, I got through medical entrance, engineering was what I wanted to study” she said. Studying in B.E. College turned out to be a memorable experience. “There was only one girl student in the entire batch. The boys were shocked, but we soon became good friends. We would chat, crack jokes with them and cheer them on at cricket matches. Never did we feel uncomfortable,” she says. Principal, and faculty members were all very protective about her, as she was the only girl student in the college campus. “They were sometimes too protective. Principal did not allow me to take up Civil Engineering as that involved extensive field study. So, I took up Mechanical Engineering.”

Initially she got a one room accommodation in the ground floor of Principal’s bungalow (what we call White House now, in the rightside corner room facing the river side). Then she had to move to a room, left corner side of the library (what is Gymnasium now). Imagine that in the whole big building she was living alone, with matron Usha Chowdhury. Their food used to come from Downing hostel. Ila-di painfully says, my father was not that rich. So, most of the days, I had to skip the breakfast and tiffin.

On social life in the campus, she was the lone girl student amongst 800+ boys. She now admits that there were many boys, both Indian and European who wanted to be emotionally attached with her, and she had to overcome those difficult situations. She specially acknowledges Prof. Pulin Behari Ghosh, the HOD of Civil Engineering, who was like a local guardian of her. The other girl ‘Ajanta Guha’ always wore a trouser and a shirt and Ila Majumdar wore a sari in front of many curious eyes. In the afternoon, they had drawing classes. In those days, even girls had to carry the drawing board and the T-square, and they could notice, hundreds of boys peeping into their class room from outside.

Then she did her post-graduate training from the Glasgow-based company Barr and Stroud. “Principal would not hear of me doing an apprenticeship in India. He felt I would be very uncomfortable in a workshop full of boys. I was initially worried whether my father would be able to shoulder the financial burden. But he agreed,” she says. Thus she became the first Indian engineering woman apprentice to go abroad, another milestone she could set. After her training, she took the bold decision of taking up a production-floor job in the ordnance factory in Dehra Dun, where she lived alone in the staff quarters. “My parents were so worried that they forced me to take a servant along.” In the process, she could set another milestone, the first Indian woman engineer to work in a heavy engineering production floor. After six months, she took up a Lecturer’s post in Delhi Polytechnic. At that time, she published two books, on Applied Mechanics and Hydraulics.

Marriage brought her back to Calcutta. She first joined the Institute of Jute Technology as a Lecturer, and then as the Principal of Women’s Polytechnic on Gariahat Road. In the year 1985 she was appointed the CAO in UNESCO sponsored project to setup Mahila Polytechnic in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She had one-and-a-half year contract. “Again I stuck to only courses in Architecture and Electronics and the project was a success,” she said.

It was in Dhaka where she rescued a Hindu widow, Kokila Saha, who had lost her family to communal strife — and she brought Kokila to Calcutta. She, old and bent, lived with her till last day. What was she doing after retirement? “I take part in various bridge tournaments. Cards, the internet and television keep me always occupied,” she says, smiling contently.

On gender bias, she says “Of course, I have faced gender bias all the time in my professional life. I think it will take a long time to change the mindset of the society, and there is no other way to bear it. But it hurts in case of selection / promotions, how the authorities find flimsy excuses not to offer a woman her rightful place as they feel she is not supposed to boss over men. One had to tolerate this”.

(Acknowledgement: an article from The Telegraph dated March 9, 2008)